Yesterday, we laid to rest a common man. He did not bear a great name. He accomplished no great and daring deeds. He was not a leader of leaders. 

He was a simple man who worked a simple job, had a simple family, and enjoyed simple pleasures. 

He was buried in the back corner of a simple cemetery in the middle of nowhere. It was a simple service of Scripture, song, prayer, and a pause to remember. 

Fifty years ago, that man and his family strolled down the road from their home to that same cemetery and wandered through the grave markers and headstones noting names and dates of people they did not know. Some lives were long. Some were not. Every stone of remembrance pointed to a story, a story of stories. 

They had no idea they would return to that same cemetery to lay to rest one untimely born. Days into a premature life, so close to her first breath, she breathed her last. And now, a common man without a great name, without great accomplishments, and without daring deeds, was laid to rest in a simple grave in a simple cemetery in the middle of nowhere near his granddaughter.

Others will wander these graves one day and wonder about the lives and the stories of those six feet under and hopefully well above in the land that is fairer than day. The names may bear little meaning. The dates may feel historic. The voices will have been long silent. 

The wanderers will wander on. Only God above will know the whole story. Only he will fully delight in a life so common, so ordinary, so unsung, and so precious to him, as precious as any who ever lived. A man loved more than words can tell, than dates can contain, than even family could measure. 

Tears were shed there yesterday, but not exhausted. More will come along with the memories, the laughter, the joy, the regrets. Tears are time-limited. They belong to this age alone. This place and time know their salty reality. They express grief, pain, and loss. They tell their own kinds of stories. 

The Story of All Stories, His Story, is the story of a tearless end.

Heaven is populated with common men and common women and common children and youths. It is populated with common people uncommonly loved, uncommonly remembered, and uncommonly celebrated forever and ever, amen. Every death is precious to our Father in Heaven. May it be so for his children on Earth as well. 

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I will celebrate the life of a simple man, a common man, and a man who lived a life so much larger than a stone marker or a memory book can tell. 

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Our Father, thank you for a good life well lived. Thank you for a father who knew the Way, showed the Way, walked the Way, and led the way to the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Thank you for loving common people, simple people, unpretentious people. Thank you for preparing a place for them and for welcoming them home. Amen.